“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” An age-old saying that we still hear today. Usually trends die out after a generation or so. Not this one, by golly. Looks like it’s here to stay.

You cannot plan for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's one of those spontaneous things that happens in your life. Sort of like when you are standing next to a shelf in the office, and a book falls on your head. Not in some mystical way, but because someone bumps the shelf without even knowing it and … bang! You get Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” ringing in your noggin. 

Speaking of Hemingway, he was certainly in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he was only 18, he was a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Italy during WWI and was wounded when a mortar shell exploded near him. He got cut and banged up pretty badly, just minding his own business, helping some wounded man into his ambulance, and the nasty war snuck up on him. Do you think that was the wrong place at the wrong time? The same shell killed two other aides with him. Wronger place, wronger time?

So, what’s your story? What was your wrong place? Was it a place you were supposed to be? Was it a place where you were not supposed to be? A place where no one, except your best buddy, knew where you were? Then, the wrong time? Wrong place, wrong time.

You can also be the one who determines what the wrong place and wrong time are. 

You decide that you are going to take the car and go to the store. Simple. Easy, everyday decision that usually has no bearing on the rest of your life. But today, it is different. You get the car out of the garage, pull out of the driveway and are off to the store. It’s only two blocks from your house, and you have done this route a thousand times. You got this. 

“Bam! Pow!” out of left field, a small dump truck runs the light and rams you in your driver’s side post. Your car spins around, the airbags deploy, glass is breaking, tires are screeching, metal is twisting, plastic is popping and you are screaming as if Freddy Krueger is coming after you. Then it all stops – it’s very quiet. You see people running around outside of your car, saying something you cannot hear. The ringing in your ears goes away, you hear everything loudly and you can see clearer. Long story short, you are going to be OK. Wrong place, wrong time.

Wow, and you survived that?!?! Fortunately, so did the guy in the dump truck. About a week later, you are out of the hospital and walk over to the window in your living room, leaving the cane resting on the arm of your chair. You look outside and watch whatever is going on out there thinking, “If only I hadn’t had that second cup of coffee.” Why? Because that was the choice that set the whole scene in motion. Your hindsight self has a point. If you had left the house without that second cup, instead of being in the accident, you would have seen it unfold in your rear-view mirror. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20, and foresight needs a crystal ball.

We just can’t go through life trying to make sure we are always in the right place at the right time. Sometimes, we can find ourselves in the wrong place at the right time – another scenario. You are driving down a road, no one is behind you, no one is in front of you, except a car on the side of the road. By the way, you are lost. You missed a turn somewhere, and now you are trying to figure out how to get straight. As you drive closer to the car on the shoulder, you see that it is an elderly couple and they have a flat tire. So, you pull over, and as you are getting out of the car, you check your phone. No signal. They probably couldn’t call for a tow. So, you change the tire, and they are grateful and kindly explain to you how to get back on your route. Wrong place (you were lost) right time, you both helped each other out.

We hear stories like that all the time. It may have even happened to you. Coincidentally, today is “National Celebrate Being in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time Day.” Or is this the wrong place and the wrong time for that? Has that not yet come around yet?